Quito

Squeezed between two mountain ranges, Quito stretches for 35 km. As we came in on the bus the outer suburbs looked dirty, desperate, dilapidated and our hearts fell.  It wasn't until we reached Centro historico, a UNESCO world heritage site that we decided we were onto a good thing after all. Hundreds of years old with colonial architecture, plazas surrounded by churches and some great museums as well as restaurants.

We are staying in a renovated colonial casa, our street

Plaza San Francisco, one of the beautiful plazas we keep chancing upon

This woman was selling peacock feathers, one of numerous street vendors plying their goods

We joined a walking tour that took us into a mercardo. This stall was selling medicinal herbs, the only one we recognised was aloe vera with the largest leaves imaginable

TeleferiQo, took us for a 10 min 2 1/2 km up Pichincha volcano to a height of 4.100m. We walked for another 200m but the summit was bathed in cloud. Views of Quito below.

Impressive cable car, bring it on Franz to Alma!

Quito Culture

Not great art gallery chasers, we read great reviews about the works of Olswaldo Guayasamin, an indigenous artist who was an activist and humanitarian, so decided it was worth our first foray on the trolley bus despite reports of pickpockets.
We were not disappointed. The museum, The Chapel of Man was an impressive gallery to his paintings that were both moving and chilling, detailing the oppression of the Latin American people and mans inhumanity to fellow man. His home on the same property was left as if he were still living there, full of his and collections of art works. At the end we were left thinking about his hope and dreams and what an extraordinary busy man he must have been to create so many works.

See this link    Guayasamin art works

We saw a video of Olswado painting his friend, it took him less than one hour!

A self sculpture of the man himself!